AGCO reports strong channelization for regulated market

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has much to be happy about, with the regulator reporting a very high level of channelization into the regulated gambling market, two years after its launch. According to a new survey conducted by AGCO, 86% of gamblers play at regulated websites hosted locally and avoid offshore operations.

This points to two important trends. First, there is a sound grasp of what the regulated market is, and how to differentiate it from offshore operators, and secondly – the regulated market is actually competitive enough to offer a robust portfolio of betting and gaming options to local players.

The 86% channelization into the regulated gambling market is a momentous rise from the 70% of players who were playing at offshore websites before the market launched in April 2022. The market has also been developing at a good clip with 47 registered operators, and 77 regulated websites in the province, AGCO reported on its official website.

Despite the cheerful prognosis, however, AGCO noted that the 13.6% of unregulated gambling participation was still something to address. AGCO went after the root of the problem, trying to identify the most popular websites, with players confirming the names of 350 offshore gambling websites where they played at and that remain available to Canadians for the most part.

This has to do with the fact that even before enacting legal sports betting and online gambling, Ontario was fairly lenient on offshore operators and did not really bother with them in the same way the Netherlands or Australia do.

Ontario AG Doug Downey has commended the results and argued that they were indeed indicative of the long way the market has come as a whole. "Since its launch in April 2022, Ontario’s igaming model has been recognized internationally for championing work to displace the unregulated online gaming market," Downey explained.

AGCO CEO and Registrar Dr. Karin Schnarr was similarly pleased with the results, arguing that high standards of data security, player protection, and game integrity have all contributed to a thriving gambling market. iGaming Ontario Executive Director Martha Otton said that her organization will continue to work with AGCO to ensure that Ontarians continue to choose locally regulated products over offshore counterparts. The trend is reassuring.

Image credit: Unsplash.com